M4A to WMA Converter

M4A vs WMA — Which Do You Actually Need?

M4A holds AAC and is the default on Apple devices, Android, and most modern players. WMA is Microsoft's Windows Media Audio, and in 2026 it survives almost entirely inside legacy hardware — older in-dash car stereos, Windows Media Player libraries, Zune-era players, and industrial or embedded devices that shipped with a WMA decoder and nothing else. So the decision is simple: convert if a specific device will not read M4A, and stay on M4A if it will. Both formats are lossy, so this trade is compatibility for a second generation of encoding loss, never a fidelity gain.

Side-by-side Comparison

WMA v1 vs WMA v2

The Audio Codec control under "Show All Options" offers two variants, starting on WMA v2. There is very little reason to move off it.

Both are the standard WMA codec. WMA Pro, WMA Lossless, and WMA Voice are separate, mutually incompatible codecs from the same family, and this converter does not produce them — which is fine, because standard WMA is the one with the broad legacy device support that makes this conversion worth doing in the first place.

When to Convert, and When to Stay on M4A

• Convert if a car head unit, older Windows machine, or embedded player lists WMA in its supported formats and not AAC or M4A.
• Convert if you are feeding an old Windows Media Player library that indexes WMA cleanly and chokes on MPEG-4 audio.
• Stay on M4A for phones, tablets, modern car systems with Bluetooth or CarPlay, and anything that plays MP3 — a device that reads MP3 almost certainly reads M4A too, and if not, M4A to MP3 is a far more universal fallback than WMA.
• Stay on M4A if the file is a master you will edit later. Two lossy generations is enough; a third is worse.

How to Convert M4A to WMA

1. Upload Your M4A File: Drag the file onto the page or click "+ Add Files" to browse. Only .m4a is accepted here, and you can queue several to convert with the same settings.
2. Set a Rate Under File Compression: Constant Bitrate is the predictable choice and arrives preselected at 128 kbps; 192 or 256 kbps gives a high-quality source more headroom. Quality Preset, Specific file size, Custom Bitrate, and Variable Bitrate are the other modes.
3. Check Audio Codec, Audio Sample Rate and Trim: Audio Codec sits under "Show All Options" on WMA v2 — leave it there unless a decoder demands v1. Audio Sample Rate, Audio Channel and Trim all start on "ORIGINAL" / "Unchanged".
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the .wma. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours later — no sign-up, no watermark.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I lose audio quality converting M4A to WMA?

Some, yes. AAC inside the M4A is lossy, standard WMA is lossy, and the server always re-encodes rather than repackaging, so the audio passes through a second encoder. Keeping the output at 128 kbps or above — 192 to 256 kbps if the source was high quality — puts the added loss below what most listeners notice on the kind of hardware that needs WMA in the first place. You will never gain fidelity by converting.

Is "Variable Bitrate" on this page real VBR?

No, and this is worth knowing before you pick it. Standard WMA has no true variable-bitrate mode, so when you choose a range such as 96k–128k our encoder writes a constant bitrate at the midpoint of that range — 112 kbps in that example. Every range behaves the same way: 32k–48k becomes 40 kbps, 128k–160k becomes 144 kbps, and so on. If you want a specific number, Constant Bitrate says exactly what it does.

Why is my WMA file bigger than the bitrate I chose?

Because the WMA encoder treats the requested rate as a target rather than a hard ceiling, and the finished file commonly measures somewhat above the number you selected. It is not a large gap, but it is enough to matter if you are squeezing a file under a fixed limit — step down one entry in the Constant Bitrate list if you need to stay under a threshold with certainty.

Does this output WMA Lossless or WMA Pro?

No. This converter produces standard WMA — the v1 or v2 codec you choose under Audio Codec. WMA Pro (which handles surround and higher rates), WMA Lossless, and WMA Voice are separate codecs that older devices generally cannot decode, so producing them would defeat the purpose of targeting WMA at all. For a genuinely lossless copy of your audio, use M4A to FLAC instead.

What happens to a multichannel M4A?

It comes out as stereo. Standard WMA is a two-channel codec, so a 5.1 source is downmixed on the way through rather than being carried across. If surround matters, WMA is the wrong target entirely — M4A to AC3 produces a Dolby Digital stream that carries up to 5.1 channels.

Can I convert an iTunes Store M4P file?

No. Files ending in .m4p are FairPlay DRM-protected purchases from the old iTunes Store, and the protection blocks re-encoding — a protected file will fail rather than convert. Plain .m4a files, including AAC rips, voice memos, and exported audio, have no DRM and convert normally.

Which sample rate should I choose?

Leave Audio Sample Rate on "ORIGINAL" unless a device specifically requires something else. Unlike some codecs on this site, WMA accepts the full range offered here — 8000 through 48000 Hz — so nothing gets silently snapped to a different rate. Resampling a lossy source is an extra processing step with no upside, so avoid it unless your target hardware caps out at 44.1 kHz or lower.

How are my files handled after conversion?

Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after conversion — never shared, never made public, and no account is required. If you later want the audio back in a modern container, WMA to M4A reverses the direction, and the Audio Cutter trims a clip without changing format.